For three years, Austin Johnson was a part of practices under former Rutgers head coach Mike Rice. He experienced the yelling, screaming and other instances which led to Rice's firing as Scarlet Knights head coach Wednesday morning.

But according to Johnson, players never felt threatened in any way by Rice.

"We're grown men. We're 6-foot-8, 250-some-odd pounds. If we ever felt threatened, we could've been physical," Johnson told The Star-Ledger Wednesday afternoon by phone. "People are acting like we were helpless. In a position like we were in harms way. And I don't feel like that's fair to say."

Johnson said that he recalled some of the instances that have been displayed across news broadcasts and sports highlight shows for the past 48 hours. And while he admitted that Rice threw some basketballs in frustration, he said a lot of what's been made public has been taken out of context.

That there were a number of instances that were captured on camera that have been made out to be what they are not.

"When you look at the video and you see him throwing the ball and you see him cursing — I know that's wrong," Johnson said. "I know that's not what you're supposed to do. But I'm not going to sit here and act like this is the only program that it's happened at. I just feel that it's unfortunate that compilation was put together, because it seems really, really, really bad. But when you're viewing it, you have to think: 'What context are we actually seeing this in?'"

The firing of Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice: what comes next?Ledger Live for April 3, 2013 - Ledger Live with Brian Donohue - Hours after the firing of Rutgers University basketball coach Mike Rice, Donohue talks with Star-Ledger sports columnist Steve Politi to discuss how unusual Rice's behavior was and what happens next for the program.

Part of the shock Wednesday was how quickly Rice's situation moved.

Johnson — who had not spoken to Rice as of Wednesday — said the news of his firing came as a surprise because the team thought the situation had been dealt during Rice's suspension in December.

"Honestly, it just went from zero to 60 so fast," he said. "During the season, after the suspension, I thought it was done with. I was shocked to see the allegations or whatever, were coming back out. It was so crazy how it happened and how quickly it escalated."

This though is not the first time in Johnson's four-year Rutgers career — he will graduate from the university in May — that he has seen his school in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. After his freshman year, head coach Fred Hill was fired abruptly following an incident at a university baseball game. That firing led to the hiring of Rice as Scarlet Knights head coach.

"It was really upsetting to me," Johnson said. "Seeing what people have to say about the relevancy of our program — only being negative at this point and only in the news for the wrong things — is really upsetting. I'm just looking forward to turning the corner. I'm upset mainly with how the season went and now that this is compounding on top of it. I'm just ready for the program to turn the corner for the right reasons."